Earth
Earth is the third planet from the sun and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets. It is sometimes referred o as the Blue Planet. Earth formed approximately 4.54 billion years ago, and life appeared on its surface within its first billion years. Earth's biosphere then significantly altered the atmospheric and other basic physical conditions, which enabled the proliferation of organisms as well as the formation of the ozone layer, which together with Earth's magnetic field blocked harmful solar radiation, and permitted formerly ocean-confined life to move safely to land. The physical properties of the Earth, as well as its geological history and orbit, have allowed life to persist. Estimates on how much longer the planet will be able to continue to support life range from 500 million years (myr), to as long as 2.3 billion years (byr). Earth's lithosphere is divided into several rigid segments, or tectonic plates, that migrate across the surface over periods of many millions of years. About 71% of the surface is covered by salt water oceans, with the remainder consisting of continents and islands which together have many lakes and other sources of water that contribute to the hydrosphere. Earth's poles are mostly covered with ice that is the solid ice of the Antarctic ice sheet and the sea ice that is the polar ice packs. The planet's interior remains active, with a solid iron inner core, a liquid outer core that generates the magnetic field, and a thick layer of relatively solid mantle. The planet is home to millions of species of life, including humans Both the mineral resources of the planet and the products of the biosphere contribute resources that are used to support a global human population. Human cultures have developed many views of the planet, including its personification as a planetary deity, its shape as flat, its position as the centre of the universe, and in the modern Gaia Principle, as a single, self-regulating organism in its own right. The Moon The Earth's satellite body, that is tidally locked to earth, therefore always showing the same side to the planet. Prior to humanities first contact with the Yi'puli in the 23rd Century, terraforming technology was primitive, allowing for humans to build domes and habititats in space which could house limited numbers. But after this, the technology traded between the two lifeforms, allowed humanity to experiment with it. In 2300 a joint Yi'puli-Human project was enacted to do two things, firstly for the human population, terraform the Moon, an ambitious task by manys standards. For the Yi'puli, humanity would equip and build Yi'puli ships with Faster-Than-Light engines that had been developed on Earth, allowing for much greater movement around their Galactic areas. The Terraforming was not done for any other specific means than showboating the talents of each species. The Yi'puli who felt outmatched by most other huamn technology wanted to show its technological advances in this field were prestigious and what better a reminder than a giant ball of life visible at all times from others homeworld. Terraforming Stages The Moon project officially began in 2300, with the agreement signed on January 2nd and the first of many Yi'puli engineers arriving in late September on a long, 60 year mission. The project is considered the most expensive of its kind ever undertaken in human history. Although no official total exists, experts suggest the total is between € 43 sextillion and € 85 sextillion (43 - 85,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) over the course of the sixty years. It began with the satellite reinforcement bubble, in which thousands of miniture satellites were created and sent to orbit the Moon, each providing a small push, so to keep the forming atmosphere from merely floating away from the low-gravity planet. In addition to this four larger satellites would perfer the same duty but on a specific point on the 'side' of the Moon, and would continue this for well over past the projects conclusion. The hope is that these satellites will slowly speed up the rotation of the Moon, from a slow 27.5 days, to something more like an Earth day. All of the existing human settlements would have to be abandoned as the processes on the planet would endanger those living on the surface. However this equated to several million inhabitants, whose travel and lodgings would have to be paid for by the cooperating nations. Once the evacuation had been completed by 2301, the process of 'Re-ignition' would begin. A small 'fleet' of lasers were transported from the Yi'puli homeworld with one intention, turning the Moon's outer crust, from solid to a mantle like substance. While this process was occuring the gases given off would be captured by the satellites forming a very primitive atmosphere, adding also that asteroids high in iron were being collected in the asteroid belt. By 2305 this was complete, the Moon was a giant molten ball of lava. From 2305 - 2307, the Moon was then artifically impacted with iron rich asteroids collected from the asteroid belt, Kuiper belt and Oort Cloud. The controversial decision was taken to move Ceres the dwarf planet in the belt and slowly push it into the Molten Moon, this process, done slowly as to avoid debris falling to Earth, took another two years. The water, iron and rock rich dwarf planet compeleted the process much quicker than would have been normal. With the foundations having been laid by 2310 the cooling process began. This involved adding water, which had already been added by the Ceres encapsulation, meaning the planet was already thousands of Centigrade cooler than it would have been without it. A Yi'puli expert once talked in an interview that without Ceres the process could have taken up to 170 years rather than the 60 it took. By 2320, the planet had cooled sufficently to set up the atmospheric factories to pump oxygen rich air into the atmosphere, which consisted of mostly nitrogen and carbon dioxide. This process would continue throughout the rest of the process. In 2335 the Moon was now 56% the size of Earth, up from the 27% prior to the project, although had been pushed further out into orbit to prevent serious tidal forces effecting Earth, it now contained 63% the mass of Earth, up from the 1.2% prior. However, now the planet was giving out a 0.88G-force through a combination of adding more mass and the atmospheric stabilsing satellites that pushed down at more than the atmospheric pressure on earth. 2335, the final part of the process began. The 'seeding' of the Moon consisted of constant shooting of extremeophile bacteria from Earth into the Moon. These were to create a bedrock of life on the planet, that would form the basis of the ecosystem. 2337, temperature on the surface of the moon stood at 37C on average, however, the surface rock had cooled, and with earthquake generators more and more water vapour was forced up from the mantle, it was then forcably made to liquify back down to the planet by the atmosphere factories. By 2340, the Moon had its first ocean, named; Magellan and by 2350, enough water had formed to sustain life. The atmosphere, although not perfect, stood within the comfortable norms of life on Earth. The formation of surface water greatly reduced the average temperature bringing it down from 37C to 18C. Although rock at the Northern and Southern poles did remain in a hotter state, life could now be transplanted to the equatorial regions of the Moon. The fleet that would now transport a selection of through bred species from eco-systems across Earth now began, codenamed Noah, it would transport several groups of the animals and place them across different, but carefully chosen regions. By 2357, the ecosystem on the planet was now sustainable, aside from a case of algea difficiancy in the early years, however this was resolved by accelerated seeding. In 2359, one year ahead of schedule the first human, none artificially supported settlement was created, named Nova, population 302. The average day on the moon lasts 51.4 hours, with 25.7 hours bathed in either sunlight or darkness. Side-effects Among several side-effects of terraforming the Moon in this way was the speeding up of days on Earth, although not noticable, the day increased from 23 hours, 56 minutes and 4.1 seconds to 23 hours, 59 minutes and 22.4 seconds. The Earth's 'wobble' increase fractionally, although not enough to cause any serious problems. The specific impacts of Ceres along with the other asteroids had not only increased the Moon's spin rate but also had pushed it several hundred thousands miles away from Earth, so that its now much larger form wouldn't have such a large impact on Earth, other than slightly higher tides. Human Modifications Since the 21st century saw the introduction of harsh eco-system protecting laws, culminating the in the Berlin agreement in 2052 which gave strict regulations for all nations on the planet, signituries or not, to curb their pollution. By 2060 it was clear that this wasn't going to be enough and at the peace conference of World War III in 2081 the major powers began the Rebirth Programme. This was to send a neutrolising agent into the atmosphere, to seek and destroy a carefully considered amount of green house gases. By the time humanity had joined the Council as a minor member in the 26th Century, much of the planet had now been taken up by cities, the longest, the European City of Meta-Paris, which engulfed a huge 67 miles around its 21st century borders. However by the 35th century, most of the planet had been taken up by cities, with much of the eco-system having been transplanted onto the terraformed Moon, which had been habitable since the 24th century, under the mutual benefit alliance with the Yi'puli, whose terraforming technology vastly accelerated anything like it humans had at the time. Earth, unlike many other homeworld planets has a tidally locked satellite planet, which, when terraformed can provide gases that may be lacking if a population is too large and de-forestation becomes expansive. This is the exact problem that faced 32nd Century humans. However, by this time with the terraforming of the Moon, Mars and other extra-solar bodies, oxygen rich air could be transported back to the planet, allowing it to thrive. Historical Value As the Homeworld designation planet of the Human Race, a major council member species, it is utterly forbidden for any other race to either i) Claim or exert any right to any territory, resource or creature that is a native of the planet or ii) Create a settlement of a foreign species that exceeds 0.5% of the native planetary population. Earth holds the record for the largest city by area (Not by population), in the Galactic Council remit. It spans 1.3 million square miles on the European Continent, home to well over 3 billion inhabitants. Earth, by a querk of the constitution and some treaties during the plague wars in c.5600AD, became the temporary Galactic Council headquarters for six years, while the main council station had become infected or as was true later on, was under seige.